November 24, 2011
*** Easy A (September 2009) – Rental
Emma Stone. High school girl decides that a path to popularity is in encouraging the rumours that she’s an easy lay. Then it gets complicated.
She says: A very likable movie, primarily due to the charismatic performance of lead Emma Stone, and the writers who gave her bright and funny dialog to work with.
He says: That was a good one, eh?
November 22, 2011
Much of the news recently has been either terrifying—the economic outlook, the failure to address global warming) or infuriating—pretty much everything the federal Conservatives have been doing, particularly their retarded Omnibus crime bill…
(Results that came up when typing “omnibus crime bill” into Google:
StarPhoenix – 2 days ago
Omnibus crime bill misses the mark Toronto Star
Bar association blasts tough-on-crime bill Vancouver Sun
Conservative crime bill a long-lasting mistake Brandon Sun)
And also the fact that they are being petulant, nasty jackasses in the House, instead of sitting back and basking in the fact that they can do anything they damn please for the next four years.
So when I saw the story about the peaceful, unresisting UC Davis students being casually pepper-sprayed at point-blank range by a police officer, I initially saw this as just more nasty news.
It just reminded me of the excesses the Canadian police forces brought down during the G20 summit, and not even just against protestors—also against a lot of people who just happened to be there.
(The above is not a photo is not of Guantanamo. It’s a Toronto G20 temporary jail, clearly depicting the human rights violation of leaving people handcuffed once in a secure area. And 90% of these people never should been arrested at all…)
And nobody’s really been held to account for that.
But the UC Davis story seems to be going a little differently.
For one thing, if you watch the full 8 minute 30 second video (instead of just the 1 minute 30 second pepper spraying), you can’t help but be really impressed at how the students handled this.
First of all the students are not being threatening in any way; the police office is just being a dick. As if pepper spraying seated students at point blank in the face one time isn’t enough, he then does it again, and again.
The crowd responds: “Shame! Shame!”. And they begin to act and move together. And one point, they do seem to have the police officers surrounded. And then… They offer a “moment of peace.” “You can go. We won’t stop you. You can go. You can go.”
And the policemen do retreat.
It’s kind of cool, and nearly gives me hope.
And sure, there are a ton of YouTube trolls posting horrible comments, but the UC Davis University has also been flooded with complaints about the incident. The mainstream media is all over the story. The officer involved has already been identified and suspended (OK, with pay, but it’s a start).
And to those who think these kids don’t even know what they’re protesting about (“What do they want?”), note that these ones do have one really specific target: The university plan to raise tuition fees 80% next year (with no plan to improved the education quality by 80% in compensation). Source: Interview with a pepper-sprayed UC Davis student at BoingBoing.
Is this a turning point?
November 16, 2011
I didn’t get Twitter for a long time. I’d go there and not really see the point. In practical terms, I didn’t really understand how anything of value could be provided in 140 characters. And there was all that talk of people just tweeting about what they had for breakfast.
Now, though, I’m addicted.
I initially signed on based on a friend’s advice to do so just to get a good Twitter-name, even if I didn’t do much with it right away. Turned out she had a point; most variations of my name and my most commonly used web pseudonyms were already in use by others. But I did find an available combination.
Twitter has a bit of learning curve to it. I started by just following a small number of people and trying to figure it out from there. I soon learned that a lot of power is in the link; sure, you can’t say that much in 140 characters, but you can link to those details. (And to photos. And to videos.)
But when I’m say addicted, it’s not to tweeting itself, which I remain a little gun-shy about. (Apparently I have tweeted 28 times in total.) In fact, I’m still not completely clear on who sees what when it comes replies, direct replies, direct messages, retweets, private message… ? All in all, it’s easier to just listen, most of the time.
Currently I follow 59 accounts, some of whom haven’t tweeted in two years, some of whom tweet so frequently, I don’t know how they stay employed.
Among my favorites are the following.
@Elizabeth May: A lot of the politicians I follow tweet mostly dull platitudes, toeing the party line. Elizabeth May (federal leader of the Green Party, but you knew that) tweets more like a real person would. I particularly enjoy her tweets from Parliament Hill, which give insight into things that wouldn’t necessarily make the media:
I had planned to make a statement marking Remembrance Day. I am shocked the CPC has blocked my chance to speak.
They didn’t like the point I was making. 40 years 1913-1956 closure used 10x; in last 40 days, 7x
Conservatives keep limiting debate. They have the votes. Not sure why everything has to be forced thru.
Ban asbestos motion. First vote to keep asbestos trade, our PM.
John McCallum asked Tony Clement about an answer by tweet! Twitter seems to be Clement’s only forum 4 G8 $ Q’s. Baird takes all Qs in QP.
Though must say it’s not exactly improving my opinion of the Conservative Party of Canada.
@simont400000: He being Simon Townshend, the much younger brother of one Pete Townshend, and who also tours with Roger Daltrey. Been kind of fun “following” him on tour:
Great show in Vancouver. Smokin’ crowd! Two shows left on tour and the TCT charity gig in LA. Come along… 2.5k a ticket. Rock n’ Roll!
And his random tweets are also kind of funny:
@Kimmittable: I’m a real fan of your earlier work.” I said that to Joni Mitchell once and she told me to Fuck off. True!
And if you’re wondering what it’s like to not be famous yourself (though he is himself quite a talented composer and musician), but hanging with the very famous:
Getting home from tour is strange… no daily sheet, no room service, no living from suitcase or doing laundry – no gigs. Not being a pop star
@dizzyfeet: This being the moniker of Nigel Lithgow, producer of American Idol and judge on So You Think You Can Dance. It’s in the latter capacity that I’m interested, but I don’t follow anyone else connected with that show. Nigel’s feed is just hilarious as he so frequently engages in public battles with those who reply to this tweets. There’s a whole “Moron” meme running through his feed that you’d have to read back on to completely understand.
RT @Clamanity: @izzyfeet Emmy voters are morons. [I KNOW. I'VE BEEN HANDING OUT #MORON NUMBERS ALL NIGHT. HA, HA!]
He’s also satisfyingly blunt (not mean) in posting his opinion. He’s recently been listed on “Recommend people to follow on Twitter”, so I’m not the only one to notice the fun to be had here. His response:
Welcome to all my new followers. Thank you#NewYorkPost I felt truly proud. Bring on the#Morons.
Of course!
@karenscian: Who? Right! She makes Simon Townshend seem famous. She’s my city councillor. Who has actually gotten in trouble for tweeting during council meetings.
But her feed covers a great deal more than the goings-on at Waterloo City Hall. She comments on Waterloo news in general, federal and provincial politics, food, family… An eclectic mix that very often seems to jibe with my own interests.
And I’ll leave the last tweet to her.
Oh Twitter, you are such a procrastination-enabler.
November 6, 2011
The conversation before the movie…
She says: How about we go see Moneyball tonight?
He says: Sure. What’s it about?
She says: Well, it’s about how a baseball manager manages to make his team better using statistical analysis… Or something like that. It’s supposed to be really good.
He says: It sounds boring.
She says: I know! It does. I saw the author of the book it’s based on on The Daily Show, and he said he thought it should have never have been made into a movie. But apparently they did a good job with the movie.
He says: You’re really not selling this very well.
She says: Brad Pitt is in it.
He says: Still not helping.
The conversation post-movie:
She says: So?
He says: You’re right. It was really good.
She adds: It really is quite a feat to make a movie on this subject (baseball crossed with economics) so gripping. The script is just excellent. Brad Pitt is also great, to the point where you basically forget he’s Brad Pitt.
**** Moneyball (September 2011) – Theatre
Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill. How the Oakland A’s Manager, Billy Beane, reinvented his team on a tight budget by using “sabermetrics” to recruit players of hidden value.
November 4, 2011
A couple months in, thought it was time to report back on Fall TV prospects.
Best new show remains CBC’s Michael: Tuesdays and Thursdays
Although I was also right that nobody is watching it; the ratings are dire. Even though they actually have moved it to Tuesdays, right after the very popular Rick Mercer and 22 Minutes. So I’m not counting on any more seasons, which is unfortunate. But at least CBC has indeed pledged to run all of this season’s episodes.
(By the way, this is no Lost; I don’t think it would be difficult to pick this series up even if you haven’t been watching from the start.)
Cast-drive new shows: Secret Circle and New Girl are in (for now); Ringers is out
One thing I can say about Secret Circle is, they aren’t afraid of casting women. The witches’ circle has four girls and two guys—one of whom (spoiler alert!) died. The adult characters feature quite a few women as well.
The show continues to be nothing more than a teenage witch show; most definitely not developing into Buffy. And sadly, the delicious Gale Harold is playing a “Dad” whose character is unable to get any (so far, only the teenagers get any). But still, it’s engaging enough, for what it is.
… Whereas the second episode of Ringers was so ridiculously awful, we had to drop it. Like, immediately.
But New Girl, we’re sticking with for now. It’s not Big Bang Theory funny yet, but amusing enough.
And I’m pleased that most sexist of the fall outings—Playboy Club and Charlie’s Angels—are already history.
Returning shows: One disappointment; two wins
The Mentalist followed up their completely awesome season finale with the lamest possible season opener: (Spoiler alert) Jayne was purely acquitted of the murder he clearly committed, then concluded that it wasn’t Red John he killed after.
So the finale that seemed to change everything, actually changed nothing. Bah.
But Big Bang Theory picked up nicely where it left off (good that they showed two episodes to start, though, as the first wasn’t quite as strong) and I continue to be really impressed by the mad figure skating skills of the hockey players on Battle of the Blades. Having a woman hockey player in the mix has been a great addition.
Returning shows on the bubble
My recorded episodes of Glee sat unwatched for so long the PVR decided to deleting some itself, along with my request to tape any future ones. (Seriously; it did.) But I did catch a few before they were permanently snatched.
And they actually weren’t terrible. I still don’t think the character of Sue is working, but others seem to have had some reparation, and the dropped characters… Haven’t really been missed. So I may try a few more episodes, PVR willing.
As for Bones, that starts tonight, and is set to record, but I’m still basically dreading it.
October 30, 2011
Not sure why, as Halloween’s not a big thing for me, but got a yen to put this together. Not claiming these are the ultimate Halloween songs—just which of my songs are most “Halloween-y”. (And I wasn’t aiming for 50 songs. That’s just where it landed.)
October 27, 2011
***½ Religulous (September 2008) – Rental
Documentary featuring Bill Maher, exploring religious belief.
She says: Better than I expected. Maher travels the world, visiting some well-known religious sites (the Vatican, Jerusalem) and some less well-known (Holy Land Experience in Floria, a fledgling Creation museum), speaking to all manner of religious people. Yes, he is rude sometimes; he’s Bill Maher. But the only thing that I made me uncomfortable was his associating between Muslims and terrorism. And he does seem to approach the subject with a sincere desire to understand why people believe. I learned some things, the most surprising being the many similarities between the stories of ancient Egyptian god Horus and that of Jesus. And it was hard not to agree with his final conclusions.
He says: Nice to see a documentary that I can agree with.
October 21, 2011
We’ve recently returned from a trip with the following itinerary:
(Not quite our itinerary, but gives you an idea)
Getting around: Why drive when you can walk?
We flew into Vegas, rented a car, and drove ourselves to the other locations. (And by that I mean, Jean did all the driving.) But it was still a pretty active vacation, because we managed to get some walking in on the driving days, and on the non-driving ones, we did a lot of hiking. And the thing about Canyon areas is, there a lot of uphills! So it wasn’t just ambling down paved lanes.
Even in sprawling Vegas, since we abandoned the car as soon as we arrived, we got around mostly on foot.
We did use a bit of public transit, trying out the cool monorail in Vegas, and having to take the free park shuttle to get out of Springdale (the little town right outside Zion) into Zion park, and to get to the various trail heads. Grand Canyon Village also had a free shuttle, but it wasn’t as frequent or as late-running as the Zion. So we did some car-supplementing there, especially at night.
But still, pretty active. And I have to say, that does wonders for sleep. And gives you quite the appetite, too. (For food. What did you think I meant?)
We’ve discovered that quite a few people actually visit all these parks from a Las Vegas base, driving out and back in the same day. If you have limited mobility, such that hiking isn’t too feasible anyway, it’s probably a reasonable approach. The landscape is very interesting—sometimes, but not always, gorgeous—but so varied and different from here, it does make for good drives. And Las Vegas is cheaper to stay in than the other places.
Not our rental car! A view from Route 66, one of the interesting drives you can do around these parts
But our best days were definitely the hiking ones, not the car ones. So if healthy and wealthy enough to do so, I’d strongly recommend getting out of Vegas and spending non-driving time in the other places.
You can’t get here by car! (trail in Zion)
The weather outside is (not at all) frightful
The weather was perfect. It was sunny everyday. It was warm, but not too warm. Despite SP15, I even got a bit of a tan.
I’m not sure that was such great luck. It is desert area, after all; warm and sunny’s not so unusual. Still, we heard that the week before we were there, Grand Canyon had turned so frigid, they actually got some snow. And Vegas got a flash flood that left knee deep water in parts.
So maybe it wasn’t great luck, but at least some luck. (Hmm, maybe I should have tried the slots at Vegas. Oh well.)
And, we were even graced with a full moon, which apart from looking gorgeous, was helpful in those small towns which (unlike Vegas) are not very illuminated at night. Especially given that the sun set around 6:00.
Hotels: Living in the lap of luxury
This wasn’t an organized tour, so we booked all our hotels a little haphazardly, over a series of weeks. In Zion and Grand Canyon, it quickly became clear that things were selling out fast, so the main criteria became, which hotel has space? In Sedona and Las Vegas, we were able to deal-hunt more, and picked out places mostly based on value (most stars for the least money).
So we were repeatedly surprised at just how fancy the places we were staying at were. In Zion, we had a full suite with complete kitchen, a hot tub outside, and a beautiful view of the park. In Sedona, we got valet parking, porters, free yoga classes, another hot tub, and walk-in closet. It also had the most gorgeous dining area, with a view, and on the Monday night, a great guitar player performing. Really, super-romantic.
And Vegas—our cheapest accommodation—was the best room of all! Again a full suite with complete living room as well as bathroom, two flat-screen TVs, walk-in closet (of course! Too bad we were never bothering to unpack), enormous bathtub (Jean said you could get a full workout walking around in there while taking your morning shower), escort by golf cart… 9 pools (all heated)… Crazy.
The only “normal” room—a perfectly fine room of the type we normally stay in—was at Grand Canyon Village. That was the most expensive one of all.
Hell is other people: The crowds
Actually, it wasn’t that bad. But, we weren’t exactly the only people there. All accommodations in Zion/Springdale and Grand Canyon Village were fully booked. (In Utah, they post Sorry! instead of No Vacancies. Isn’t that cute?) But where Zion had some crowded buses and busy restaurants, it really wasn’t annoying. Like, we never made restaurant reservations, and that was never a problem.
But in Grand Canyon, there really were people everywhere, all the time. Really hard to get parking, most any of time of day. Really hard to get a seat at a restaurant, especially the better ones. (One we had to reserve weeks ahead, and still got only an 8:45 dining time; another we had to wait 45 minutes before being seated.) In Zion, on some trails, we hardly met anyone. Not so at Grand Canyon.
Joining the crowd to watch the sunset at Grand Canyon
In Sedona, the trail we did was really quiet; hardly met anyone. I guess most people were visiting the little town, which was quite a bit busier. But manageable. And except for one very popular restaurant, no dining issues here, either.
Las Vegas is packed with people. Especially at night. On the streets, in the hotels, everywhere. But, great people watching, especially given the higher percentage of attractive people here (especially female, but some men as well). And of course, so many restaurants, they’re not all going to be booked.
But all in all, if this is sort of the low season, can’t imagine what it’s like in these places in the high season…
You didn’t come all this way for the food, did you?
Well, no, we didn’t. But, with the help of a few guide books, we mostly did pretty well in the dining department. It was not a big foodie focus (for once), but with about two exceptions (both in the Grand Canyon—who knew breakfast could be so dire?), all the meals ranged from decent to very good.
A real Mexican focus to the food options here, which unfortunately made us realize that we get tired of Mexican food faster than other types (despite it being better prepared there than anywhere around here). The El Tovar at Grand Canyon was touted as a five-star restaurant; I’d say that’s generous. It was good, but in local terms, I’d say it was Solé good rather than Verses good. But it was just a gorgeous place to be at; too bad it was too dark to see the view.
The beautiful restaurant at Sedona also had really good food, though with very disorganized service. Still, that benefited us one night, as they were so late bringing us the wine, we got it free! And pretty much every place we tried in Springdale was rather remarkably good.
In Las Vegas, we had supper in Paris, lunch in New York. (I just like saying that.) And back in Sedona, we did an Arizona wine tasting. I only learned on the flight over that they even made wine there. None of the restaurants seemed to serve it, but two of the whites and one of the reds were very enjoyable.
Sorry; probably more of me than you want to see. But when in Vegas…
Leaving Las Vegas
And what did we think of Vegas, really? Worth visiting… for a day. Never seen anything like it before. But if you don’t gamble or drink your face off, it doesn’t take that long to get tired of the crowds, the noise, the smoky casinos (that all look and sound the same). And mainly what there is to do there (besides gambling and drinking your face off) is visiting big, lavish hotels and fancy designer stores. Which gets old.
But, they do have good shows. And we did get same-day discount tickets to one of those, the Cirque du Soleil Beatles Love. It was really excellent. It was compelling in itself, but I also felt it gave me new insight into the familiar Beatles music. Even at a discount, not cheap, but certainly my favorite part of Vegas.
For more photos, see http://jean-cathy.smugmug.com/Travel/Zion-Utah-Sedona-Arizona-Grand/19635036_qgqcMK#1539211510_N2cb2X3
(And Jean will be continuing to add and update that area in the coming days.)
And for a particularly detailed account of the trip: http://jean-cathy.com/cathy/photos/nevada-utah-arizona.htm
October 17, 2011
We’re just back from vacation to Zion, Sedona, Grand Canyon, and Las Vegas. And you’ll be reading and seeing more about that from me soon. But first, I wanted to finish this post I started before leaving, about my trip to exotic Toronto. I’ve already talked about the Daltrey part of that, but not about the foodie part (the second time a Daltrey has included visits to fine restaurants. So I guess that’s a tradition now.)
First up: Canoe!
We’ve been hearing about Canoe for years and years, and finally went. For lunch, because that’s cheaper.
It is a beautiful space up there on the 54th floor. Even though we had a somewhat cloudy day, it still offered an impressive view of Toronto.
We did feel slightly underdressed, as we were in our rock concert gear while most everyone else seemed to be on lunch break from their Financial District jobs, and therefore in business dress (the only nod to Friday being that many of the men didn’t have ties). Nevertheless, we received impeccable service. (And very prompt.)
For some reason this is now a two-star restaurant in Where to Eat in Canada, but to us, it was definitely three-star food. It’s not every day you swoon over squash soup, but theirs did taste divine, featuring a maple accent. Maybe even better than the wild mushroom soup Jean had, though no complaints about that one either. For mains, Jean had a beautiful goose cassoulet, and I had a salmon fillet that I’d hoped would be more smokey (it was described as “smoked”), but came with fairly amazing rice in broth. How often do you describe rice in broth as amazing?
Vertical
Our dinner restaurant was a no-star listing in Where to Eat, and was indeed not as impressive as Canoe. Still, Vertical is not a bad place to go. It has fun, lively-looking bar area, and a quieter dining one. We were there quite early in a bid not to miss any of the concert, and our waiter was quite accommodating in not rushing us through the order selection process.
The meal was fine but not outstanding, except for one item: the haddock ravioli with truffle and chanterelle. Which sounds totally weird. But it was just delicious, with pasta of perfect texture, and a fantastic blend of flavors.
Le Petit Déjeuner
I don’t usually go on about breakfast, but I feel a need to mention Le Petit Déjeuner, on King Street East, because it had the most amazing scrambled eggs. Really—scrambled eggs. I’d never had such amazingly light, fluffy ones before. (The waffles were also quite delightful.) We got to wondering how they achieved this texture. Jean’s been studying the matter with the help of an egg cookbook written by a French chef. He’s getting closer…
Tawse Winery
The next part of this weekend getaway actually took place in Niagara-on-the-Lake, as part of a work thing of Jean’s. Included was a group tour of Tawse Winery (sometimes Jean’s job is really tough). Jean and I had visited before, but that one was the typical step up to the bar and try out a few tastes of wine type. This one featured four different wine stations, each with a food item that suited the wine being tasted, followed by a visit to the wine cellar where we could try any other wines they made. And, we were led on the tour by the vintner himself.
All the little appetizer items were very nice on their own, and did suit wine being highlighted. And those were all good, except that the Pinot Noir just wasn’t quite there yet. (The vintner agreed; we were tasting it before it was ready to be bottled and sold.) We got a full explanation of their wine-making process, and how it’s different from most other wineries, so I did come to understand why Tawse wines cost more than many. Despite that understanding, though, we still bought only one bottle each of their two cheapest wines, the Riesling and the rosé.
Vineland Estates
Our one winery stop on the way home was at Vineland Estates, in Vineland (would you believe). I wanted to go after having enjoyed their wines at the Solé dinner, but in the end, we didn’t even do a wine tasting here—they seemed a bit busy, and we didn’t want to wait. But, we did have a fine lunch. They have a very beautiful room with a view, enjoyable even on this day, which was gray and rainy. And all the food was very nice. We went totally seafood, sharing mussels to start, then Jean had the bouillabaisse while I had the smoked trout (which was as smokey as I’d hoped). Nice job on all the fish for being so far from the sea.
October 3, 2011
It was a long piece, but I knew if we could get to the “Listening to You” chorus, we’d be all right. We’d have them.
—Pete Townshend on performing Tommy
The raison d’être for Roger Daltrey’s latest tour—apart from his continued desire to keep performing for as long as he possibly can—is to present the Tommy album live in a way The Who never did: Playing the entire thing, in order, with the full complement of harmonies and keyboards and everything included on that iconic album.
Witnessing this Friday night, it became clear that there are a few problems with that approach. The original album is sequenced a bit weirdly, both story-wise and musically. And even with the dropping long, instrumental “Underture”, it’s quite long. So while you would certainly build and gain momentum through some sequences: 1921, Amazing Journey, Sparks, Christmas… Or particularly, Pinball Wizard, Tommy Can You Hear Me, Smash the Mirror… Momentum would then somewhat be lost by the necessity of then performing a lesser track like Sensation or Sally Simpson.
(“Is this still Tommy?” Jean asked, about three-quarters of the way through.)
That said, there was still plenty to enjoy about the live performance of this opera, and it wasn’t all the expected stuff. Like, for example, seeing Roger Daltrey, for the first time (that I know of) taking on the villain’s roles in “Cousin Kevin” and “Fiddle About”. He seemed to really relish those two roles (maybe nice to finally not be the in Tommy/victim role), and sank his acting chops into the interpretation. I can honestly say I’ve never enjoyed either of those songs more.
30 years after being under Cousin Kevin’s boot, Daltrey finally gets to turn the table
Another surprise was just how enjoyable the silly little “Tommy’s Holiday Camp” song was—possibly because it is perhaps the only giddy moment in this rather grim little opera. It was totally fun.
And the songs you expected to be great… Really were great. Last time I saw Roger in concert, the microphone twirling was very limited and approached rather gingerly. But clearly the old man’s been practicing, because it was whipping around like nobody’s business during “Pinball Wizard” and the finale. It was impressive. See:
And speaking of that finale… I’ve seen many videotaped versions of The Who leading the crowd toward what seems an almost religious experience after Roger Daltrey sings the “See Me / Feel Me” chorus for the last time, and then everyone joins in on the “Listening to you / I get the music” chorus. But I’d never participated in that. And this crowd was fantastic. The second that moment came around, everyone was on their feet, rushing the stage, pumping their fists, singing along… It looked, sounded, and felt amazing. The ovation at the end was huge. Daltrey appeared really touched by it.
But how was the voice?
Last time I’d heard Daltrey perform, two years ago, the voice was not good. He’d even had to cancel some performances. So I felt grateful to have seen him perform at all. But that whole show, he was singing through a thick, nearly hoarse, rasp.
It was much, much better this time out. This isn’t to say it was perfect. Despite the humidifier going, the water, the tea, the strictly enforced smoking ban in theatre, the voice did crack on some of the high notes—for example, on the See Me / Feel Me part of “Christmas”. But it sounded beautiful on others — for example, on the See Me / Feel Part of “We’re Not Going to Take It”. And in the lower ranges, there were no issues at all.
(By the way, entire tour performances available from http://www.livedownloads.com/. I hear can now confirm that the Altanta show was particularly good – no voice cracking. )
The concert, Part 2
The second half of the show featured a variety of songs among the now rather large catalog Roger and his band have rehearsed. And where the Tommy had some unavoidable lulls, the second half was nothing but highlights, including (but not limited to):
Also fun was his solo track, “Days of Light”. And on “Baba O’Riley”, when he unbuttoned his shirt all the way (as the Toronto Sun’s [female] writer said, “it was an impressive display.” It’s not normal to get even more fit and muscular as you age, is it?), raised his arm, and his full head of hair was backlit, you were definitely reminded that this was the iconic rock God of the seventies, right there, right now, still.
Still a rock god
We want to be on stage, but we don’t want to be on a pedestal. We’re like you. I’m like you. That’s what this song says to me.
— Roger Daltrey, Toronto, September 30, 2011
Since I knew that the playlist for the second half varied from night to night, I was trying not to get my hopes up about any particular song being performed. But in truth, there is one I really wanted to hear: “Without Your Love”. [Because I'm a sap!] I was not to be disappointed on that front. He did a lovely job with it.
After that, he explained that they had a strict time limit for this particular performance, and performed one last song, the lovely “Red Blue and Grey”. I was feeling slightly miffed at apparently getting a shortened show, but you know, the thing started before 8:00 (with a quite good opening act), Roger and band took the stage somewhere between 8:30 and 8:45, and it was nearly 11:00 when it was over. No breaks.
I supposed 2-2.5 hours is a reasonable length of concert for a 67-year-old man who just had throat surgery.
Our seats
Though I tried not to fret overly much before attending this concert, one thing I did wonder about a bit was just how good our seats were, really. Turns out, they were really very good. We were in the fifth row, and though not right in the center, you could see everything really well. The only problem, really, is that is not very good seats for taking pictures and video. There was always a light right behind Roger’s head, which just washed out his face on film.
One photo that didn’t turn out too badly
Fortunately, there were hundreds taking pictures and video there, so I’m not going to be deprived of that.
We did get talking to people before the show started. The guy beside us was kind of funny, as he didn’t seem entirely sure what he was about to see. And his question about how much the seat cost confused me a bit as well. Maybe he won his in in a contest? But, turns out he’d bought tickets from a scalper minutes before, so that explained that. He was a very friendly American from Florida, who’d last seen The Who perform around 1979.
And the people in the row in front us of turned out to be from Waterloo as well. But they’d bought their tickets on Tuesday! This Tuesday! Ticketmaster, I bought my tickets the day they went on sale. Why did these people get better ones, four days before the show? (They said it wasn’t from a reseller or anything.)
[Almost forgot about some lady behind us—apparently not such a big fan—who was nearly freaking out at having been told how long the show would be. Kind of funny.]
Anyway. The important thing is I was really close to Roger Daltrey again, and in fact, even managed to go stand right in front of the stage by evening’s end. (Even though we didn’t make eye contact this time.)
The band
The set list was actually somewhat similar to that of the 2009 Use It or Lose It tour, but it sure has acquired a professional sheen on this tour. In introducing his band, Roger said that they were “the best band I have ever played with.” Now, I don’t know if he’s including The Who among the bands he has played with, but there is no denying he has assembled a fantastic group of musicians here. They provide beautiful backup harmonies throughout, and completely solid musical accompaniment.
I also kind of met them before the show. As I was asking Jean if he remembered seeing what was likely Roger Daltrey’s limo drive past us when were walking over to the Orillia show two years ago [he didn't], a big limo bus pulled up to the stage entrance of the Sony Centre. So we ambled over to see who would get off. Clearly, we did not meet Mr. Daltrey, or even the young Mr. Townshend. But we did see the keyboard player, and the drummer, and musical director and lead guitarist Frank Simes was particularly nice with all the fans.
The famous-only-by-association Frank Simes
Our buddy Frank on stage
The crowd
I’ve already mentioned them a few times, but it was a great crowd. (The place looked sold out to me; I don’t know if it actually was.) Mostly boomers, of course, but a number of them brought their teenage kids, so that made for a nice younger contingent. I could sense (and hear, in all the singalongs) a real diehard Who crowd. Jean, who didn’t have such a constant laser focus on the man onstage, spent more time actually looking at the crowd and enjoying how much they were enjoying it.
And I’ll leave the last words to Jean.
You know, I didn’t hate that. I didn’t hate that at all.
It’s really high praise.
